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SAGA Battlefield Hazards
Battlefield Hazards. Because a lone Gammorean standing over a duraplas cylinder in an 81 square meter room is boring. *Much thanks to the_gneech for compiling the original list, which I have expounded upon with rules. Remember that Hazards only affect the CL of an encounter if they are interacted with. If there's a gargantuan open pit in the middle of the hangar bay for a starship elevator, and everybody involed stays on the other side of the room, it didn't increase the hazard rating of the encounter. If the players stayed away from the pit while NPCs battling the players clustered near it, the pit only threatened the bad guys, and might actually reduce the effect CL of the encounter, as it constituted a beneficial circumstance for the players; calculate the player's experience as if the hazards which only interacted with their foes were additional Player Characters with character level equal to their Challenge Level. Hazards which were interacted with by the players add to the CL of the encounter, even if it also threatened the NPCs. =Character Scale Hazards= The Imperial NOSHA (No Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is always hard at work ensuring that workman's compensation payments never get made, that disabilities suffered on the job are as fatal as possible, and that the empire's peons die as early a death as possible, all in the name of keeping healthcare costs down and treading upon the downtrodden. For this reason, it very well does seem as if handrails are actually illegal, and working in an Imperial installation is a death sentance long before the Rebel Alliance bursts through the door. In much of the galaxy, there is No OSHA Compliance. Why? Because it makes battles dull if they take place in a working space that has been carefully designed to be as safe (read: boring) as possible. No, these spaces were designed by Ikea: they are Unböring, easily assembled by workers with as minimal training and tools as possible, and they are cheap. They're also a freaking death-trap, but hey - they're cheap! Open Pits, Chasms and Shafts Because no space exists that can't be spiced up with a gigantic open pit! Now, normally, these are little or no danger; heroes are perfectly capable of doing battle straddling the side of a pit with little to no actual danger posed by it... Not much of a hazard, is that? They seem only to exist for Bantha Rushes... That's böring. Therefor, the following rules have been implemented: *Characters who are fighting adjacent to a pit or other falling hazard are in danger of falling in, even without someone attempting a Bantha Rush against them. Such characters may choose to fight at a -2 penalty to all their attacks, skill checks and Reflex Defense, and concentrate on not falling into the pit. **Characters who do not devote their attention to falling into the pit are at risk. If they are moved down the condition track for any reason, they may fall; a DC 20 Atheletics Check will prevent them from falling entirely. If they beat DC 15, they catch themselves securely on the rim without requiring their hands, and do not risk dropping any held objects (such as by getting their arms wrapped around a post). If they beat DC 10, they fall and catch themselves securely with one hand, dropping any held objects they cannot hold in their other hand. If they beat DC 5, they fall and catch themselves securely with both hands, dropping any held objects. Dropped objects fall to the bottom of the pit, and may or may not be recoverable, circumstances depending. (A blaster that falls 10 meters onto a solid floor can be recovered without difficulty once the battle is over. A lightsaber that plummits down a shaft towards grinding gears probably will not be unless the owner can catch it with the Force before it hits bottom.) ***Characters who are holding onto the edge are considered to be in the combat space of the pit adjacent to where they fell from. Their Reflex Defense suffers a -5 penalty until they climb out, as a Move action that provokes Attacks of Opportunity, or a Swift action that can be made with a Climb check of 15 and does not provoke Attacks of Opportunity. It's not the fall that kills you... It's the sudden stop at the bottom. Or worse. I think everyone would agree that falling down a kilometer-long shaft is bad, but most would also agree that falling down a kilometer-long shaft into a burning hypermatter reactor core is worse..... Conversely, there are actually pits in the galaxy which are not malign death-traps waiting to happen. Many are maintenance spaces, or simple working spaces, or crawlspaces for small beings and droids to traverse. For your benefit, the rules regarding taking falling damage have been reproduced here: *Make an attack roll (1d20+20) against the Fortitude Defense of anything that falls; on a successful attack that creature, droid or object takes 1d6 damage for every 3 meters it falls. On a failed attack, they take half damage. Falling characters or droids land prone, regardless. **Characters trained in Acrobatics reduce the damage they take from a fall with a successful DC 15+ Acrobatics check; they treat the fall as being 3 meters shorter than it was, plus an additional three meters short for every 10 points by which they beat the DC (IE, DC 25 reduces effective distance by 6 meters, DC 35 by 9 meters, and so forth and so on.) Characters who succeed in reducing the effective distance they fell to nothing do not fall prone at the end of the fall and take no damage. *The maximum possible damage a character can possibly take from falling in normal gravity is 20d6, having fallen 60 meters. This is the point at which a character has reached terminal velocity, and cannot accelerate towards the source of gravity. Acrobatics checks made to reduce distance from falling act on this number, not the true distance fallen - if one has fallen this far, the acrobatics check is less "slow your fall with something" and more "use skydiving techniques to slow your descent and ease your landing." **Example: A character trained in Acrobatics falls a total distance of 90 meters, having leapt from a crashing airspeeder. His Athletics check reaches 40, reducing the effective distance he falls by 9 meters. Instead of calculating his damage as being 81 meters and capping it at 20d6, he reduces the 60-meter cap by 9, to 51 meters, and takes only 17d6 damage; an average of 59.5. If the attack roll against his fortitude defense miraculously fails, the average damage he takes is reduced to 29.75 - a distinctly survivable plummet, even for characters of relatively low level! *Gravity's effects are dramatic - as are those of atmosphere, though this is unlikely to play a part in all but the most extreme falls. In low gravity conditions, damage from falling is rolled with d4s, and in high gravity conditions, damage from falling is rolled with d8s. In dense atmospheric conditions (falling into dense gas,) reduce the maximum possible falling distance proportionally, down to a maximum of 45 meters, and in thin atmosphere, increase the maximum possible falling distance proportionally, up to 75 meters - any thinner than that, and you're effectively falling in vacuum. Don't fall a long distance in vacuum! (See exacerbating situations below for more details.) **Atmospheric differences only become relevant for falls greater than 45 meters. Below that, don't bother even thinking about the atmosphere pressure ***Thick atmosphere lowers the terminal velocity of a fall; reduce the maximum possible falling distance from 60 meters by 3 meters for every .1 atmosphere thicker the local conditions are than of a normal 1.0 atmosphere world, to a maximum of 45 meters at 1.5 Atmosphere. Any thicker than that and you're facing a pressure hazard anyway. ***Thin Atmosphere is the opposite: Terminal velocity is increased, resulting in a higher maximum cap for the falling person. Raise the maximum falling distance by 3 effective meters for every .1 atmosphere the local conditions are thinner than on a normal 1.0 atmosphere world, to a maximum of 87 meters falling distance (29 dice of damage) at 0.1 atmosphere. Any thinner than that and you're effectively falling in vacuum. ***Falling in Vacuum: Very, very simple: There is no maximum falling distance, dole out damage based on true distance fallen. The above chart measures the distance fallen (in meters), the number of dice of damage one takes from falling that distance, and the Challenge Level of interacting with a hazard of that magnitude. This chart measures the challenge level before Acrobatics checks, but after the effects of atmosphere and gravity. *Normal gravity follows the chart, and results in the CL listed. Low gravity reduces the CL by 2 from the chart, and reduces the damage dice size to d4s. High gravity increases the CL by 1, and increases the damage dice size to d8s. **Under normal conditions of 1Atm, the maximum possible falling distance is 60 meters (20d of damage.) Read Atmospheric Differences (Above) to understand how the atmosphere being thinner or thicker than 1Atm affects these figures as regards maximum falling damae. ***Falling a damage-registering distance of 90 meters or greater is only possible in vacuum. The Challenge Level of the hazard never goes higher than 17 for distance fallen, whether you fall 90 meters in vacuum or plummet to the surface of a high-gravity rock from a kilometer up. Surival at that point is it's own reward, be glad for the CL 17 XP. Of course, one must consider that there are hazards to falling down shafts which are not normal falling damage. These hazards could be the primary threat of the pit (Falling a mere 3 meters, into heavy industrial machinery,) could be insult to injury (Falling 60 meters onto punji-sticks), somewhere between (Falling down a 21-meter shaft that crackles with electrical discharges) or overkill (Falling 300 meters in vacuum into a gravitic mining beam.) Most such additional hazards are best described as their own hazard, and dealt with as such - simply calculate the total CL of the encounter by considering all hazards encountered (whether characters or not) as individual challenges adding up to a whole. Some, however, are most always found as part of a pit - such as the aforementioned punji sticks - and are exacerbations mostly unique to falling. Falling and Pit Complications and Mitigations It never goes smooth, does it? Except when it does, of course, but nobody remembers the time it went smooth. If mitigating factors reduce the CL of a hazard to 0 or less, simply forget it exists except as scenery, it's not worth bothering with. *Falling Mitigation Factors **Adequate Hand-rails: Congratulations, you've found like, one of the five pits in the Galaxy that have hand railings installed. Reduce the CL of the pit by 3, and it reduces the required Acrobatics checks by 10. (So a DC 10 lets you ignore the risk of falling, a DC 5 lets you catch yourself securely without hands, and a DC 0 lets you catch yourself with one hand.) **Some railing: Maybe there were normal rails that have been smashed over time, or a Jedi and Sigh have been having a lightsaber duel along the edge of the pit for ten minutes by the time you get there. Either way, there's railing, but it's all fecked up. Reduce the CL of the pit by 2, and reduce the DCs by 5. *Falling Complications: **Slippery Surface: Perhaps some wingnut has gone and spilled lube oil all over the deck-plating. Increase the DCs by 5, increase the CL by 1. **Jagged Edge: Maybe it's been torn up by blaster fire, maybe the edge is rough-hewn obsidian forming sharp spikes. Exacerbating and Mitigating Conditions Not all pits are easy to see; not all are easy to climb out of. These additional hazards increase the Challenge Level of a given pit by a set amount... On the other hand, some pits are easy to see, clearly marked, or even have railings to catch you by! These reduce the Challenge Level of a given pit by a set amount. *Gravitational difference: **Low Gravity causes falling damage to be rolled with D4s. Reduce the effective challenge level of a given pit by 2. **High Gravity causes falling damage to be rolled with D8s. Increase the effective challenge level of a given pit by 1. *Atmospheric difference are as follows, for the scientifically pedantic. Reduce or increase the CL as appropriate for the distance fallen on the chart above. Category:Star Wars Category:Saga Edition Category:House Rules Category:D20